Last mission to repair the Hubble telescopeHubble space telescope discoveries have enriched our understanding of the cosmos. In this special report, you will see facts about the Hubble space telescope, discoveries it has made and what the last mission's goals are.

For their own goodFifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.

Gaunt Al-Arian shocks family

By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published March 20, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT

Sami Al-Arian has been on a hunger strike for 58 days to protest being held beyond his prison sentence. On a water-only diet, he has lost 53 pounds. The former University of South Florida professor can no longer walk, speaks in a whisper and trembles constantly because of low body temperature, said family members who visited him last weekend at a federal medical prison in Butner, N.C.

"We were stunned when we saw him. His deterioration is shocking," said Al-Arian's son, Abdullah, 26.

Al-Arian, 49, is bedridden in an isolation cell. A nurse checks on him twice a day, and a videocamera records his every move, say officials from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Three hot meals are placed in his cell every day, for two hours at a time. Then they are removed, untouched.

"We will not let him die. We will force feed him before that happens," said Nikki Credic of the U.S. Marshals Service.

But Al-Arian's family is calling his condition dire.

"We are extremely worried for his life," said his wife, Nahla.

Al-Arian went on the strike Jan. 22 to protest being held in jail beyond his sentence because he refused to testify before a Virginia grand jury.

In May he pleaded guilty, as part of a plea agreement, to helping associates of a terrorist group with nonviolent activities. The plea agreement came after a jury acquitted Al-Arian of eight terrorism-related charges and deadlocked on nine lesser counts.

While no explicit language was written into the plea agreement about Al-Arian's exemption from testimony before a grand jury in Virginia, federal prosecutors in Tampa agreed with defense attorneys that Al-Arian would not have to testify in Virginia. That verbal agreement was recorded in court transcripts. Seven months later, he was transferred to a Virginia jail and ordered to testify.